


Harbouring a Fugitive

by Zeborah



Series: The Time-Traveller's Ex-Husband [3]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeborah/pseuds/Zeborah
Summary: The team continues to investigate the mystery of Haley's disappearing corpse. A regenerated Haley (aka Harmony Brooks aka Melody Pond) continues to visit Hotch's apartment. Hotch continues to not quite know what to believe.
Series: The Time-Traveller's Ex-Husband [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994980
Kudos: 8





	Harbouring a Fugitive

_"I've been thinking about Ockham's Razor," he said to Reid, who'd been babysitting while JJ helped Hotch box up Jack's toys from the house. "I mean, either Amy Brooks developed some kind of lifelong monothematic delusion as a result of losing her daughter at birth; convinced a high-ranking FBI agent to forge official documents for her and stay silent for more than forty years; somehow passed her delusion on to a pair of erotomanic UnSubs who may or may not be related to her first adoptive daughter; then despite their severe shared delusion, these UnSubs were somehow organised enough to gain Haley's confidence, put their own portraits in her grandmother's bedroom, steal her body while a serial killer was preparing the house for my arrival, and effect a flawless prison break from the middle of Quantico literally under the noses of three armed FBI agents..." From necessity he took a breath. "Or else Haley regenerated into a new body and was rescued by her birth mother's time-travelling friend."_

_Reid considered the dilemma thoughtfully and offered, "Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes say that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."_

_"Which one's 'the impossible' in this scenario?"_

_Reid laughed, and JJ and Will came in with the last of the boxes before Hotch had a chance to say: No, really -- which one?_

"Ten pm, December second, 2010?" asked either the erotomanic UnSub or the regenerated version of his ex-wife.

"Yeah," Hotch said, letting her inside.

"Oh, _good_ ," she said in relief. She wore a belted grey tunic and leggings tonight. The belt was in the form of a snake, metallic scales lightly shimmering in the light and two bright golden LEDs for eyes. She hadn't brought his jacket back, but that really seemed like the least of his worries at the moment. "How's Jack?"

"We're trying him in his own bed tonight, but he's still a bit unsettled, so... Can you... turn your belt off, or...?"

She blinked down at it. "Oh, right." She took hold of the head that formed its buckle: the eyes didn't dim, but the tail fell loose, swung, and caught on her wrist instead. "Hold her for me? Don't worry, she's very placid."

She put the buckle/snake's head on the back of his wrist before he could frame a confused objection, and at her light shake the tail fell off her arm and wrapped around his, slithering until it formed a loose coil around his forearm. The head shifted on his skin, dry and faintly warm, and a tongue flicked out to lick at one of its eyes.

He looked helplessly up at the woman, but she was already threading her way around the stacks of boxes to Jack's bedroom.

Hallucinations were a third option, he reminded himself, looking back at the snake wrapped around his outstretched arm. It looked... contented, the shimmers settling into slow ripples along its length like a light breeze on an oilslick.

Or hallucinations were a subset of the first option: Amy Brooks's puerperal delusions infecting everyone she came in contact with.

Shaking his head, he went back to the kitchen to finish putting the dishes away. The snake didn't seem to mind, at least, but he was careful not to bang it on anything.

He was still sorting the cutlery into its slots when the woman joined him with a soft smile. "I think she likes you."

"I'm not entirely sure the feeling's mutual," Hotch said, offering it back.

It resisted, tightening its grip on his arm as she tugged gently at its head. He was about to try easing its tail up when the head came away with a hollow pop. Both eyes and scales went dead. With an irritated tut the woman deftly unwound its long body from his arm and pushed the two... parts back together. At once the eyes shone again, the body shimmered furiously, and it snaked lightning-fast up her arm.

Hotch grabbed for it in alarm, but it was already past her neck, slipping up through her microbraids. Its head emerged at the crown of her head while its tail gathered her braids into its coil, and it settled there with its eyes glaring brighter than ever.

"Okay," the woman said, looking up at it through her eyebrows, "that works too."

Hotch warily withdrew his hand. "What exactly is...?"

"I'm not really sure," she admitted. Her wry smile was too familiar on that smaller mouth and those fuller lips. It slipped under his gaze. "Aaron--"

"I can't call you Haley."

Her mouth hung open. He looked down before she did. He couldn't bear to see that look on her face, as if he'd slapped her. A stranger's face, but still it made him remember his fight with Haley as he'd packed for Milwaukee.

Finally she said in her lowest tones, "You could call me Melody." When he couldn't quite say anything to that she added, "Is ten o'clock okay?"

"Ten's fine," he managed. He saw her in the corner of his eye nod, then swallow, and finally turn to go. When he heard the front door open and close he grimaced at himself and pushed the cutlery drawer shut.

*

_"We're not ruling out the possibility that she's still alive somewhere," Strauss said as Hotch stared blankly at the Bureau's offer of early retirement. "But even if we do find her, she'll... need time to recover, and you'll want to be with your family."_

_Of course right now he was still on leave, even as the team was on another case. Jack needed him too much to even think of going with them. But permanently?_

_He just hadn't thought that far ahead. "When would you like a decision?"_

_Surprised, she said, "I thought I would be leaving with one. What's your hesitation?"_

_"I'd just like to take some... time to weigh all of my options."_

"December fourth?" asked the woman. Melody, he reminded himself. There was no sign of the snake today: her braids were tied up with a plain elastic, and she wore a black waistcoat over a long-sleeved mint-green top and short black skirt.

"Yeah. Come in."

She smiled and went straight to Jack's room. Hotch went to take the boiled water off the stove and dug out an old box of chamomile. When she came out he had a mug of tea ready for her at the table. "So, um... Melody... we should talk."

She forced a smile as she sat down. "Sure, but where do we start?"

"Well," he said, because there were certainly plenty of places they _could_ start, but only one that was urgent right now, "yesterday Strauss came to offer me an early retirement package, but I've been talking it over with Jessica and she's suggested that if I do go back to work, she can look after Jack when I need to be away."

He paused for whatever reaction she might have to any part of that. Several crossed her face, dismay and exasperation among them, and she pressed her lips tightly together against what she might have first said. Lifting and blowing on her tea, she said neutrally, "And you're thinking about it."

Just as neutrally he returned, "I'm thinking about what's best for Jack, yes."

She pressed her lips together again and took a sip -- then pulled a face. "Ugh, this tastes like dead flowers."

Hotch stared in disbelief at the sheer pettiness of the complaint. "It might be a bit stale--"

"No, it makes sense: it's made out of dead flowers, isn't it? Do you have any... I don't know, energy drink or something?"

"When have I ever had energy drink?" When had she ever _drunk_ \--?

"Never mind, I'll just get some water."

He sat there as she bounded up to fetch herself a glass and pour herself water from the jug in the fridge. _Focus,_ he told himself. It wasn't like he'd have expected the conversation to go well even if Melody had been the old Haley. Except that if Melody were the old Haley, Jack would still be living with her and Hotch wouldn't have needed to have this conversation. But _focus_.

When she came back with her water he said carefully, "Regardless of what I do, Jessica's going to be playing a big role in his life. And she asked me to tell her if I heard anything about... you, and I don't know what she meant by that."

Melody's eyes widened, liquid brown. "She... she heard all Nan's stories, just like I did."

"But does she believe in them? Because if I tell her and she doesn't believe me then I lose my job, I lose custody, and I quite possibly go to prison for harbouring a fugitive."

"She's seen Nan's paintings of Mels-- of--" She steadied herself. "Tell her I said 'fish fingers and custard'."

"Why don't you tell her yourself?" Hotch asked. She bit her lip and he pushed, "You've visited me five times but you haven't visited your sister once?"

"I was visiting _Jack_ ," she corrected him in a flash.

"That doesn't ex--"

"Do _not_ interrogate me, Aaron."

He kept his voice even. "I think I'm entitled to--"

"Aaron, just stop it!"

He lifted his chin a fraction at that furious whisper and held her gaze. If this was an interrogation then this was the part where she broke down and told him what the hell was going on--

She huffed in disbelief and stood up. She turned to go and he waited, because he could see it coming -- and there she paused in the doorway. She kept her back to him. "You have no idea what it's like," she said, low, over her shoulder, "to have someone you... someone you've known for half your life look you straight in the eyes and..."

She didn't finish the sentence. Aaron had no answer to it. She started to lift her hand to her face, abruptly dropped it back to her side, and strode away.

*

_"Hotchner," he answered his phone as he signed another one of the forms JJ passed to him. There was an astounding amount of paperwork involved in coming back from leave and being reinstated as unit chief after killing the man who had attacked you and arguably murdered your ex-wife._

_"Good afternoon, sir. This is just a reminder that your jacket is ready to be picked up."_

_"Sorry?"_

_"Your jacket is ready, sir. You understand we can't hold items that aren't claimed within two weeks."_

_"No, of course." They hung up while he was still trying to wrap his head around _two weeks_ : it hadn't even been quite two weeks since he'd killed Foyet._

_"Is everything okay?" JJ asked._

_"Yeah, I... just forgot I'd left my jacket at the drycleaners..."_

_"What time do they close?"_

_"I'm not sure," he admitted. He wasn't even sure _where it was_. Would Melody have used Haley's usual drycleaner, or avoided it?_

_"We can finish these tomorrow," she said, gathering up the forms and files. When he didn't answer, she said, "Hotch..." and trailed off. It wasn't like she needed to remind him what a crappy two weeks it had been, even aside from the time-travelling fugitive ex-wife in a new body. Finally she tried with a wry smile, "How many times have you made me go home early to be with Henry?"_

_"Not nearly enough." He pulled himself together and added, "Thanks, JJ. I'll just... check my emails before I go." Being an FBI agent had to have some perks, and today that included doing a reverse lookup of the phone number that had called him._

"Thanks for the loan," Melody said, offering back his jacket. When he eyed it mistrustfully she laughed: "Come on, it doesn't have time lice!"

"What are time lice?"

"I just made them up. --I hope," she added, less than reassuringly. "Why are you acting so weird about it?"

"Because I just picked it up from the drycleaners yesterday," he said, "and I don't know, if it meets itself does it create a rift in the space-time continuum and destroy the universe, or just... take up extra space in the wardrobe?"

"Let's not find out," she agreed, draping it back over her arm, along with the voluminous folds of the heavy black cloak she wore tonight. Her braids were loose again.

And she hadn't checked the date with him tonight. Guessing, he asked, "Were you looking for December second?"

She blinked. "This isn't the second?"

"It's the tenth. The eleventh, actually: it's also about one am."

"Shit, sorry." She scowled at her wristwatch: that at least was the same chrome and leather as the other nights. "Time travel's trickier than it looks."

"It doesn't come with a manual?"

"It comes with about two years' of theoretical and practical exams. It's worse than getting a driver's license. And I _really_ wanted to see Jack again, so I..." She trailed off, looking a little guilty, and conspicuously changed the subject. "Is he in your room again?"

"His," Hotch said, and watched her head that way down the hall. She'd wanted to see Jack, so she... was time-travelling without a license? And where had she got her own time machine anyway?

How come the more Melody visited, the _more_ bewildering everything got?

When she came out, she had a determined look on her face. "What have you told him?" she asked.

Hotch looked away. "I... think having these conversations out of order isn't a good idea."

"You're not worried about a temporal paradox."

He was worried about being _confused_. He was fairly sure she hadn't told him to call her Melody yet. Had she looked so hurt that time because he was about to call her that, or because he made himself call her Haley once, or because he managed to avoid calling her anything at all?

In any case he wasn't going to be able to avoid her question forever. "I've told him that his Mom loves him, and that we're all trying really hard to find her. And honestly I am open to better ideas."

With a resigned sigh she said, "I didn't say I had any better ideas."

*

_"I know the Bureau thinks this 'doctor' hacked into the security feeds to cover his tracks," he said to Prentiss, "but what do you think really happened in that interrogation room?"_

_She got her most excruciatingly tactful look and answered carefully, "I think we saw what they wanted us to see. She said 'time travel', we saw a time machine. She said 'blue box'... that's what we saw."_

_"But if we all saw the same blue box..."_

_"I don't think we did. Straight afterwards, Rossi said the 'doctor' was speaking Italian and for a moment -- maybe Reid's right and they dosed us with some kind of aerosolised hallucinogen, because for a moment I thought I remembered that too. But on the tape it's definitely English." Of course it was English. Hotch couldn't have understood him if it hadn't been. "And that's the other thing. You told Rossi he was carrying DOJ credentials?"_

_"That's right."_

_"He asked me to check because he thought they were army. I thought Interpol. But on the tape-- May I?" she asked with a gesture to his computer. He waved permission and watched her quickly bring up the video, skip to a memorised timestamp, and zoom in on the credentials._

_They were blank. "Well," he said after several seconds staring at them, "at least you're not involved with my psych eval."_

"December thirteenth?" Melody asked.

"Ten o'clock," Hotch confirmed. He handed her the prepay phone he'd bought: "So you can check for yourself in future. I don't know what it'll do in the..." Her dress, in grey with burgundy pinstripes, went from neck to leather-booted ankle, complete with cinched waist and bustle; a matching hat perched on a slightly dishevelled updo. "Nineteenth century?"

"New Year's Eve, 1879," she said with a wicked grin. "But mostly the fiftieth. Give or take."

Right. Sure. Why _not_ the fiftieth century? "Well, once you get here it should sync with the local timezone."

"And I can call ahead to make sure you're not on a case?" When he looked away to gather his response she said, "Aaron, of course you were always going to stay with the BAU."

"It wasn't an easy decision."

She rolled her eyes, but admitted, "I know you'll do what's best for Jack. And, you know." The eye-roll this time was more self-directed. "Thanks for letting me see him."

With an effort of pronouns he said, " _You_ always let _me_."

" _You_ weren't on the FBI's most wanted list."

He shook his head and said solemnly, "You're not on the most wanted list. The selection process for that takes months."

Laughing, Melody went to take her allotted minutes watching the sleeping boy in the dark. Hotch had done that himself plenty of nights, and knew how soothing it was to see your son was safe. But if it was all he had, would it be enough?

He returned to the kitchen table, where his laptop sat with a stack of open cases he needed to get back up to speed on. Over the last couple of years he'd got used to being able to just stay late at the office to catch up, but that wasn't going to work anymore.

When Melody emerged, she took in that paperwork with a wry smile, but didn't say anything. "See you next time."

He nodded and turned another page as she let herself out. Then he pushed the files aside and closed the front-most document on the laptop. Behind it, a dot blinked on a map to show the location of the phone he'd given her. The device he'd slipped inside was an old one, long superceded by smaller, finer grained, longer ranged devices: its main advantage was that hopefully no-one at the Bureau would notice it had gone missing. But if she left the building it'd at least give him a read on which direction she took, and--

The dot disappeared. _Signal not found_ read the error message. There'd been barely time for her to walk halfway down the hallway and, sure enough, when he switched to view the camera footage (riskier: if discovered, the landlord could lay charges -- or more likely take pity, put in his own cameras, and catch Melody himself...) there she was half a minute ago, walking towards the back stairs. She slipped into the space where a couple of schoolkids upstairs kept their bikes, and... just never came out.

He didn't think there was headroom there for the blue box that had appeared in the interrogation room -- possibly not even the width. He watched the empty hall for another few minutes, then went to check Jack was still sleeping soundly.

Collecting gun, cuffs, and keys, he slipped out of the apartment and down the hall. There was definitely no room in that space for a blue box, even if the bikes hadn't been there. What there was, still in that camera blind spot, was a railing that if climbed -- awkward, in a nineteenth century gown, but far from impossible -- would give access to either clamber onto the stairs up, or make a short drop to the stairs to the basement.

So, great: either she was travelling in a particularly narrow time machine, or she'd learned the most rudimentary fundamentals of countersurveillance and taken the battery out of the cellphone. This was not the conclusive answer he'd been looking for.

*

_"You've never asked me how the case is going," Morgan said when they'd finished the last of the paperwork from his time as interim unit chief._

_Morgan probably_ would _be involved in Hotch's psych eval, even if only to give an opinion on his return to the field. So Hotch bought himself a moment to think with a stolidly in-character, "Rossi will tell me if there's anything new."_

_"Hotch, you know every time unidentified female remains turn up my aunt calls me to ask if it's Cindy, and I hate what that does to her, but it's normal to wonder what happened to her."_

_"I know what happened to Haley," he said, and the memories of that gunshot and blood aroused all the grief and guilt Morgan could have expected; and nagging doubt, determinedly suppressed. "What I don't know is--" He hated admitting any weakness, even for the cause of pretending some other weakness, but he had to give Morgan _something_ to stop him digging for more. "I've taken Jack to meet all our neighbours, and I told them it was because he's been nervous around strangers but the truth is I'm the one who wanted to know exactly who's living in my building."_

_"Anyone would. You want to know Jack's safe."_

_"Well, I also want to help him get through this, and I can't do that if I'm obsessing over the case the way I did with Foyet. But that doesn't mean I don't_ wonder _."_

Jack took so long to settle that Hotch dozed off beside him, and woke drowsy and wondering if he needed an early night himself. So when he padded out to find Jessica still there, putting away the washed dishes, he blinked in confusion. "I thought you'd have headed home."

"I wanted to talk about Haley."

 _That_ woke him up. He braced himself for all the half-truths of yes, she definitely died; no, she didn't suffer; yes, the team was still looking for the people who'd taken her body.... "Of course."

Jessica put away the pair of glasses in her hands and turned to him, nervously drying her palms on her skirt. "When we were kids," she said, "she used to be jealous of my curls. Nan used to tell her not to worry, one day she'd have all the curls she could ever want."

 _Nan really wasn't kidding about the curls,_ he remembered Melody saying when she'd seen herself in the mirror. He didn't think he'd mentioned it in his report. He wasn't sure he'd even remembered it until now.

Jessica continued, "On my first day at kindergarten, I came home crying because these boys had been teasing me and pulling my curls. And she hugged me and told me not to worry, one day I'd have straight hair."

He smiled, imagining it, but he was calculating at the same time. "She'd have been four. I thought your parents adopted her when she was six."

Jessica's mouth moved more in acknowledgement than smile. Without answering, she said, "Nan said she told you about Harmony."

"She told us a lot of things," he said warily, and ventured more warily still, "She gave me one of her paintings. It showed a woman she couldn't have ever seen."

"With curls?" she asked. When he gave a small nod she asked further, "Was it the woman you arrested at your house?"

He nodded again. "Agent Rossi thinks she or the man who helped her escape forged it."

"What do you think?"

He took a breath; hesitated. "I... really need to know what you think first."

She studied his face. For a long moment he thought they might be stuck at that impasse, each afraid the other would think they were crazy. But then she said, "I think Haley would never let anything keep her away from Jack. If she could find any way to come back, she would, and I don't want you to arrest her just because she looks different than she used to."

"Well," he said, nerving himself up for the confession: "I think she has. And I haven't."

He watched her reaction: a jumble of emotions too strong to be easily sorted out, all contained within a tight box of desperate practicality. But _belief_ \-- that was the important thing. After a long, struggling silence, she asked, "You've seen her?"

"Seven times. But she doesn't just look different. She's more impetuous. She's wearing dresses, she swears, once she asked me for an energy drink, and I'm pretty sure she's driving a stolen time machine without a license."

"An energy drink?" Jessica echoed in bewilderment.

He shook his head helplessly. "And then she'll say something and it's exactly what Haley would have said. My team is convinced she's been stalking her for years. If they knew I've been letting her in here they'd think I'd gone mad."

"You're not mad."

"Sometimes it feels like I am." Belatedly he caught himself. He was spilling his guts out of sheer relief that after three weeks he finally had someone to spill his guts _to_ \-- forgetting what needed to be said first. "I promised I'd tell you. I'm sorry."

She gave him a wry smile. "I grew up with this and it's still overwhelming." They shared a look of silent understanding. It was _really_ good to have someone who not only believed him, but rescued him from his own quagmire of doubts. "Do you know when she'll come back?"

He shook his head. "Not which day. When she does, it'll be at ten o'clock. Stay," he added, just to make the invitation official. Of course she was staying.

Not very long later, at ten o'clock, the text message came: "Is this a good time?" He tapped out, "Perfect," and went to open the door. Melody breezed in, and he had just time to close the door behind her before she stopped short.

He glanced at Jessica. She stood, wiping her palms again on her skirt, lifting her chin in determination. "Password?"

Melody flashed a belated smile. "Hey, sis."

"Password," Jessica repeated.

"Fish... fish fingers and custard."

"Do you still carry a marker with you?"

Melody reached behind herself and pulled something from the wasitband of a skirt made of several layers of knee-length pleather strips. It was a black vivid: Hotch remembered Haley had always kept a black vivid in her purse, and he'd never in all the years he'd known her thought to ask why. "No marks yet. And I haven't killed the doctor," she added with cheery pride.

Face crumpling, Jessica strode to her and folded her in a tight embrace.

Hotch slipped quietly from the room and let the two sisters catch up.

*

_"Sorry I jinxed it," Dave said, sitting down with him on the jet at the end of Hotch's first case back in the field._

_He glanced out the window as they started taxiing across the runway. "Well, it looks like I really can get home to Jack this time."_

_Dave knocked on the wood veneer panelling with a smile. Then, watching him, he asked, "What's really bugging you?"_

_It was bugging him that he was harbouring a fugitive, no matter that said fugitive was the very victim she was suspected of kidnapping. It was bugging him that he was keeping secrets from his team, no matter that his team demonstrably wouldn't believe the truth if it materialised directly in front of them._

_It was hopeless. But this was Dave: he had to _try_. Pitching his voice low -- with Prentiss forbidden to fly on her concussion and Morgan staying to drive her the long way home, the plane was echoingly quiet -- he said, "We bungled this case because we were so sure we knew what was going on that we ignored the pieces that didn't fit, and I think we're doing the same thing with Harmony Brooks." As Dave opened his mouth to stop him he pursued quickly, "None of your theories explain why there was _no_ evidence of anyone else at the house, or why Garcia hasn't found any trace of Harmony Brooks either before or after Amy and Rory adopted her, or why Canton Everett Delaware the Third would be involved in an adoption scam."_

_"I know," Dave said ruefully, and for a moment Hotch thought it might be a foothold. "But, Aaron, I promise once we find the missing pieces it will all make sense."_

"This a good time?" said Melody's text.

"Sure," Hotch texted back, and opened the door. She joined him from down the corridor: she must be parking her time machine in a corner of the basement after all. Today's fashion shoot was a black leather jacket over white cotton top and short skirt; her shoes a comfortable-looking white and her microbraids tied back in a ponytail. "Tennis?" he guessed.

"Waitressing. You hear the best conversations." Her grin seemed unstrained: whatever private meaning lurked behind that, she didn't hate the job.

"They don't have robots for that in the fiftieth century?"

"There's robots," she said with a judicious tip of her head. "They're... reliable tippers."

He laughed, though he wasn't sure she was joking: hearing the sound from himself surprised him, and drew a smile from her so bright that he had second thoughts about the one before.

"It's good to see you smile again," she explained.

"Well, I'm trying, for Jack." In all the chaos of the last month, he hadn't forgotten her plea to him, before Foyet shot her, to make sure Jack knew he hadn't always been so serious.

"I know. And you're doing great. I just wish you didn't have to. Aaron, I am so sorry."

He shook his head in confusion. "None of this is your fault."

"I could have elbowed Foyet in the gut and grabbed the gun out of his hand."

Of all the self-recriminations he hadn't expected, that had to be the one he'd expected the least. "That didn't exactly work when I tried it," he said; and rather than get side-tracked thinking about that, added, "Anyway, it's not who your family raised you to be."

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "They didn't want me to kill the doctor -- that doesn't mean I can't defend myself."

"Well," he said, not knowing how to touch any of that even if he'd had a bargepole handy, "speaking of your family, Jessica talked to them and she wanted me to ask you if you're free on Saturday."

"Really?" She poked excitedly at her watch. "What time-- Wait. Saturday the twenty-fifth? They want me to come for Christmas?" And from wondering delight she swerved abruptly to suspicion: "What about you?"

"Jack and I will be there. You deserve to see your son awake."

"Really? Oh my god, Aaron--" And she flung her arms around his neck, kissed his cheek, and was away again and bounding for the door before he had a chance to react. "I've got so much shopping to do," were her parting words.

He really hoped it wasn't going to involve any snakes.

*

_"Oh good, you're still here," said the Christmas tree coming into his office. "Morgan said you were going home early."_

_"That's still the plan," he answered vaguely -- if he could just get these last reports in -- but it was hard to focus on those in the face of Garcia's blinking earrings and jingling hat. "What's up?"_

_"I made cookies," she said, tendering a box as she rushed on, "and I know you like to keep your personal life separate, but I also know Christmas really sucks when-- when someone isn't there, so if you and Jack want some company--"_

_"We're actually spending Christmas with Haley's family," he put in before that could get more awkward. He already felt guilty for what felt like lying to her. "But the cookies are always popular. Thank you, Penelope."_

_Her answering smile was unrestrained. "You're welcome, sir. And I'm glad -- and there's always more where these came from -- and I'll let you get back to your work. And merry Christmas!" she concluded on the way out._

"Merry Christmas" was the day's refrain, from the moment Jack called it from his bedroom well before the time a four-year-old boy should be awake, to the excited greetings when he bounded into his grandparents' house. Among adults it was tinged with more solemnity -- and awkwardness, when Melody emerged from what Hotch remembered as her childhood bedroom. Her parents had missed her and been desperately worried about her -- they clearly wanted it to be her -- they'd heard the stories -- but this woman was so very different from the daughter they remembered.

(Looking Black and ten years younger, and speaking with a British accent, and wearing a skirt. Today's style melded the metallic purple of a nineties nightclub with the volume of a fifties swing skirt. With it came a sleeveless black satin top and knee-high boots, and less explicably a khaki jacket. The gold tinsel scarf did absolutely nothing to bring the ensemble together.)

She and her father hugged like two strangers acting in a badly directed play. Her mother clasped her hands in greeting: both hands, and tight, but at arm's length. Only in Jessica's embrace did she seem to relax a little.

Then she came to Jack, who was watching them all, sensing something important going on and trying to puzzle out what. "Merry Christmas, Jack," she said, with a brassy smile that Hotch was starting to suspect of covering up her own uncertainty. "You can call me Melody."

"Merry Christmas, Melody," he said obediently. And, seeing the bag slung over her shoulder: "Did you bring us presents?"

"I sure did," she said before Hotch had to choose between chiding the lack of manners or applauding that brief confidence with an apparent stranger. "Show me where to put them?"

He eagerly showed her the Christmas tree, and the decorations and lights, and talked her through putting on the traditional record of carols. But even after all this tour -- for which she'd never once taken her eyes off her tour guide -- she still looked around as if something was missing. "Where's the laptop?"

The silence then was tangible. Her father scowled at the floor; her mother touched his arm comfortingly. Every year they brought out the laptop to Skype with Amy Brooks in her New York apartment. Every year except this year, of all years....

It was Jessica who broke the news: "Nan died two days ago. Peacefully, in her sleep."

"Two days?" Melody echoed indignantly, and then her jaw set. "Well, that's rubbish." She turned back towards her old bedroom, braids whirling in unison with her skirt. "We'll be back in a minute."

In alarm Jessica called, "Hal-- Melody -- you can't kill Hitler."

"Not going to try," she retorted, already out of sight.

Hotch strode after her. He'd never seen Haley like this, but he'd seen this: in his line of work it usually ended in suicide by cop, or some other irrevocably terrible decision. He needed to stop her before she got in her time machine, just long enough for her to _think_. "Jack's wanting to open presents--"

"Yes, in a minute," Melody said, fiddling impatiently with her watch.

"Can you just explain--"

She disappeared.

He stopped short. There'd been no time machine -- no blue box, at least. She'd just poked her watch, and disappeared in a literal flash--

\--And in another flash reappeared, with Amy Brooks on her arm. Amy staggered, laughing as Melody caught her: "I forgot how much of a punch those vortex manipulators pack!"

"Melody," Hotch started in dismay. If he'd had time to think himself, he'd still never have guessed she'd bring Amy _here_. _Now_ , two days after her death. But then he remembered Amy telling Jack he was sounding sadder than when she'd seen him at Christmas. He'd just assumed she'd meant last year....

"Who's that?" Amy asked.

"Aaron," Melody said. "He's still getting his head around this whole time travel thing."

"Give him time. Don't worry, Aaron, she'll take me home after dinner. No paradoxes _this_ Christmas. Now, where are my boys?"

In helpless bewilderment, Hotch trailed them back out. Jessica exclaimed happily; their father looked first incredulous, then overwhelmed; their mother exchanged cheerful greetings before excusing herself to see to the roast. Jack said hello much less sadly than those weeks ago, and offered her one of Garcia's cookies.

Hotch sympathised with their mother, and was tempted to offer to help in the kitchen. But as far as she was concerned, wasn't he part of all the turmoil? And when, after all, _was_ he going to get his head around 'this whole time travel thing'?

Besides, it was Christmas, and seen from the outside it might have looked like a very normal one. Lights sparkled, carols crackled from the record player, and presents were exchanged. There weren't even any biomechanical snakes. A signed first edition for Jessica; a vase for their parents matching one that had always stood in the hallway alone; for Amy the bronze figurine of a Roman soldier Hotch remembered seeing in her apartment a month ago; a clockwork toy for Jack that _looked_ futuristic, but was emphatically, in every part, made of wood; and for Hotch a USB stick and a mysterious smile.

Jack even decided to trust his (great-)grandmother enough to show her the painting he'd made for Haley, while Melody studied every stroke over her shoulder, tears standing in her eyes. Over the other shoulder, the old lady's adoptive son held her thin hand, and Jessica watched them all from a drawn-close armchair. She looked like she wanted to take a family photograph, if it weren't for the impossibility of explaining it to anyone else, and so was determined to memorise the scene instead.

Just another family reunited for the holiday season, and for one day at least Hotch wasn't going to worry about where -- or when -- they'd all come from.


End file.
